Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a further increase in the size of the army, according to a decree published by the Kremlin which, however, as stated in the Kremlin statement, requires Russians to voluntarily join the army, while his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, promised the army to reform compulsory conscription laws in a video speech on Friday.
In the summer of 2022, months after Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the size of the Russian army to increase to 1.15 million personnel. Then, in the fall of 2022, Putin ordered the mobilization of about 300,000 men called up by the army to fight in Ukraine. The issue has caused panic in sections of Russian society, as hundreds of thousands have fled abroad.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday denied the possibility of planning a second wave of mobilization in an attempt to address the population’s fears. Instead, the ministry said it will rely on Russian citizens who voluntarily join the army.
It is planned to expand the size of the Russian Armed Forces by adding 170,000 contract or conscript soldiers, bringing the strength of the Russian Armed Forces to 1.32 million.
In turn, his Ukrainian counterpart promised army reforms regarding the conditions for the possible demobilization of front-line fighters, including some soldiers who have been fighting on the front lines since Russia launched the large-scale invasion in February 2022.
Zelensky said, as quoted by the German Press Agency: “Everyone in Ukraine realizes that changes are needed in this area.” Zelensky said potential new recruits would also be a focus of the changes to the law. He added that any changes will have to be prepared and approved by the military leadership.
The goal of the German army and its partners is to train around ten thousand Ukrainians to carry out various tasks by the end of the year.
The German Army (Bundeswehr) has trained a second group of Ukrainian soldiers on the Patriot air defense system, and after more than six weeks, the training of around 70 men and women is almost complete.
“Defending Ukrainian airspace is a key mission,” said Lieutenant General Andreas Marlow, commander of the Multinational Special Training Command, during a visit to the training site, noting that Russian attacks are particularly directed against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine .
On Friday, a German Press Agency correspondent accompanied Marlowe on his visit to the training program, at an air base in Germany, the name of which was not revealed for security reasons.
But the same training command, based in the town of Straussberg near Berlin, manages the work of the European Union Training Mission (EUMAM) for Ukraine, launched more than a year ago.
In a related context, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that the Russian-occupied Zaporizhya station (in the south) was “temporarily deprived of electricity overnight,” stressing that it was the eighth interruption this year since the conflict began. . The Ukrainian nuclear energy company Energotom announced that on the night between Friday and Saturday the plant was briefly “on the verge of a nuclear accident” due to a temporary power outage.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said Saturday that the plant lost electricity supply for some time after the last remaining line from Ukrainian-controlled territory broke, which was later repaired.
Russia occupied the plant in March 2022 and has stopped power generation, but it needs electricity to cool one of its four reactors, which is in a state of “hot storage,” meaning it has not stopped to work at all.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said in a statement on Telegram that one of the power lines leading to the power plant broke late Friday evening, while the last line with a capacity of 750 kilowatts stopped working Saturday morning local time. The ministry added in the statement: “This power outage is the eighth to have occurred at (Zaporizhya station) and could have led to a nuclear disaster.” The ministry said the station operated 20 standby generators to meet its electricity needs after its connection to the grid was cut. She added that Ukrainian specialists repaired the line, which has a capacity of 750 kilowatts, by seven in the morning.
The Russian administration of the Zaporizhya station acknowledged the disruption of external electricity supplies, but confirmed that “no violations” of “safe operating conditions” were observed. He confirmed via Telegram that the radiation level at the station site was “normal.”
It seems that the interruption of one of the two lines was due to an accident that occurred “far from the station”, according to what the international agency announced, without providing further details. “The recent power outage is a new reminder of how fragile nuclear safety and plant security are, which can be compromised by events far away from the site itself,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in a statement .
The power outage puts the station’s proper functioning at risk, according to Energotom, which indicated that the station was “on the brink of a nuclear and radiological accident.” She added that “Ukrainian specialists” managed to restore the electricity supply from the external grid.
The company’s president, Petro Kotin, accused “the (Russian) occupation forces of not caring about the safety of the Zaporizhya nuclear power plant.” He added: “They will continue to create dangerous situations and blackmail the whole world with a nuclear and radiological accident.” The Zaporizhya nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine has been under Russian control since the invasion began in early 2022.